Friday, May 03, 2019

The body of a 10-month-old boy was recovered on Thursday and three other migrants, including two children, were still missing after their raft capsized as they crossed the Rio Grande in Texas, U.S. Border Patrol said.

The rubber raft flipped over on Wednesday night near Del Rio, Texas, and all nine of its occupants were swept away in the cold, fast-flowing water, according to the father of the dead child, U.S. Border Patrol said in a statement.

The father swam to safety. A Border Patrol agent jumped into the river and rescued his wife and 6-year-old son. The boy was given emergency care and then rushed to a hospital for advanced treatment. Another man and his son were found on the river bank.

The missing were believed to include the 7-year-old nephew of the dead child’s father, a girl and an adult male, according to the statement.

"What we’re dealing with now is senseless tragedy,” Del Rio Sector Chief Patrol Agent Raul Ortiz said in a statement.

The baby’s body was found several miles downriver by a Border Patrol search and rescue team.

Drownings are common on the Rio Grande, which makes up part of the U.S.-Mexico border, as migrants try to cross on often overcrowded, makeshift rafts with no life jackets...

In the past seven months, Border Patrol has apprehended over 418,000 migrants on the southwest border, already surpassing the 2018 fiscal-year total. Most of those arrested were Central American families, many of them crossing the border in large groups that can number over 400 people.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection recorded 283 deaths on the border in 2018, ranging from heat-related fatalities to drownings... Migrant advocates say the death toll is far greater as many bodies are never recovered from deserts and the Rio Grande."

Nothing good can come out of emigration culture, i.e. regarding emigration to a more prosperous country as the default path to success, and those who stay and work in their homeland as failures. It drives people to emigrate at any cost, legally or not, and ultimately leads to deaths. At least, once this man's loved ones were in the cold turbulent waters of Rio Grande as a result of his poor decisions, he could try to bring them out, instead of swimming to safety himself and leaving their rescue to the Border Patrol. Moral: do not concent to a perilous journey if the man leading you is a coward and a loser. Of course, dragging one's family through deserts and rivers to cross a border illegally and earn detention is the sort of idea that comes exactly to losers, so wives should just say "no".

Friday, March 08, 2019

From a March 6 report by Jon Gambrell, Associated Press, via Yahoo! News:

"A
prominent human rights lawyer in Iran who defended protesters against
the Islamic Republic's mandatory headscarves for women has been
convicted and faces years in prison, an activist group said Wednesday.

The
conviction of Nasrin Sotoudeh, who previously served three years in
prison for her work, underlines the limits of challenging Iran's
theocracy as it faces economic pressure exacerbated by the U.S. pulling
out of Tehran's nuclear deal with world powers...

It shows "the insecurity the regime has to any peaceful challenge," said
Hadi Ghaemi, the executive director of the New York-based Center for
Human Rights in Iran, which reported Sotoudeh's conviction. "It knows a
large segment of the country . are fed up with the hijab laws."

Sotoudeh,
55, was convicted in absentia after she refused to attend the trial
before Tehran's Revolutionary Court as she was unable to select her own
counsel, Ghaemi said. The Revolutionary Court conducts closed-door
hearings over alleged threats to Iran's government.

The
charges range from her membership in a human rights group to
"encouraging corruption and prostitution." That suggests her detention
in part relates to her defense of women who protested the mandatory
hijab.

Sotoudeh's
conviction was not immediately reported by Iranian state-run media.
Iran's mission to the United Nations did not immediately respond to a
request for comment Wednesday.

The
Center for Human Rights in Iran relied on information about Sotoudeh's
case provided by her husband Reza Khandan, who separately faces a
six-year prison sentence over providing updates on her case on Facebook,
Ghaemi said...

One
of Sotoudeh's clients in the hijab protests received a 20-year prison
sentence, showing the sensitivity authorities felt about the case...

The
hijab and chador — the flowing, all-encompassing robe for women — have
long been parts of Persian culture. They became political symbols in
1936, when Iran's pro-Western ruler Reza Shah Pahlavi banned the
garments amid his efforts to rapidly modernize Iran. The ban became a
source of humiliation for some pious Muslim women in the country.

As
the 1979 Islamic Revolution took hold, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini
ordered female civil servants to wear the chador. At first, thousands of
women protested the decision in Tehran and Khomeini later said
officials should not insult women who chose not to wear it — though he
also called the chador "the flag of the revolution."

The hijab and loose-fitting clothing later became mandatory for all women in Iran..."

On March 8, my sympathy to Ms. Sotoudeh and the suffering Iranian women.

Update: Nasrin Sotoudeh has been sentenced to to 33 years in prison and 148 lashes. Amnesty International has a petition to free her - please sign if you care!

Tuesday, February 05, 2019

In April last year, 7-year-old Ethan Hauschultz from Manitowoc (Wisconsin) was killed. His photo above has been provided by his mother Andrea Everett. Because of alleged neglect and abuse, Ethan and his three siblings were taken from her by the authorities and put under the guardianship of their grand-uncle Timothy Hauschultz and his wife Tina. These two individuals, together with their 15-yr-old son Damian, are now charged for his death.

Timothy required the children to memorize verses from the Bible and, when not satisfied, punished them by forcing them to carry around for hours logs heavier than 20 kg. On the fateful day, Timothy went out and ordered his son Damian (then 14) to oversee Ethan's punishment. Because the 7-yr-old kept dropping the log, Damian "hit and kicked the younger boy 100 times, rolled the heavy log over his
chest and stood on his head and body while Ethan was face-down in a
puddle. He then allegedly buried him in "his own little coffin of snow"" (Damian's words to the investigators; he laughed).
When Timothy returned and found little Ethan lifeless, he rushed him to a hospital but it was too late: Ethan died from "hypothermia and blunt force injuries to his head, chest and abdomen".

It is not easy to find this case in the news without explicit searching - it is buried, like Ethan himself. It should be front-page news and send shock waves all across the Christian world. And also in child protection services, who rip children from allegedly unfit parents just to place them under the care of monsters who kill them. In another US case from last year (the Hart case), two crazy women killed their six adopted children in a murder-suicide after starving and otherwise abusing them for years.

Friday, February 01, 2019

Ex-Muslims of North America have declared today, Feb. 1, as No Hijab Day, to support the right of women to not wear the hijab (Islamic headscarf). The two sets of photos above speak for themselves. Both are from the Twitter feed of Roxy, hattip Prof. Coyne. I hope that the women shown (in the bottom photo, not actually shown) will eventually enjoy the freedom to express themselves and to feel the wind in their hair.

Wednesday, December 26, 2018

Today is the second day of Christmas, and I hope everyone is having a good holiday. Every year, there is a discussion around Christmas time among a certain age group whether Santa (or whatever his equivalent is called) is real. Below, I am copying a brilliant comment on the subject, posted on Prof. Jerry Coyne's site by Justin Zimmer (I don't know whether this is all his original text):

"Typical non-believers. I don’t believe in the same Santa you don’t
believe in. Year after year I hear the same old arguments rolled out
against the literal interpretation of Father Christmas, but never do any
of you address the best arguments for Santa Claus. Of course there
isn’t an obese, bearded, cis-gendered, heterosexual, white male with bad
taste in winter wear and an outmoded, non-vegan, yet carbon-neutral
animal based transportation system who knows when you are sleeping, or
awake and judges you based on adherence to a parental and often
patriarchal set of rules. That’s simply ridiculous and no
self-respecting possessor of Christmas cheer truly believes that. Only
children would be so naive. What is “Santa Claus” really but the spirit
of goodwill towards your fellow non-gender specific human beings, the
ground-of-being jolly in the cold winter months and the joy of giving to
those in need. No, Santa Claus is not a literal person you can write
letters to beseeching consumerist trinkets in exchange for good behavior
but the natural desire to do good by others, a sensus-saint-nicolatus
if you will. When you sit down to write that letter to jolly old Saint
Nick, you aren’t really expecting anything in return, just submitting to
the hope that somehow good things will come your way and towards
others. Santa is hope, Santa is love, and who would argue against hope
or love? Jerks like you of course. That coal in your stocking is merely a
metaphor for the blackness of your know-it-all, a-santa-ist hearts."

Throughout the war against the Islamic State, Kurds have been the most valiant and committed fighters. And now, after the USA has used them, President Trump betrayed them. He suddenly announced withdrawal of US troops from Syria, which will leave the Kurds at the mercy of their enemies. And this is just the umpteenth time in history when the so-called free world betrays them. About the Islamic State, Trump says it has been defeated and will not come back. We'll see.

Tuesday, July 10, 2018

See what I have just found on Yahoo!News. Shanara Mobley, a Florida mother whose newborn daughter Kamiya was abducted as a newborn from the hospital in 1998, was very happy when the girl was found alive and well last year. However, Kamiya (raised by her kidnapper as Alexis Manigo and continuing to use this name) didn't accept her mother and remained bonded to the kidnapper Gloria Williams even after she learned the truth. Now, Shanara Mobley admits that she has blocked her daughter's phone and wishes that “they never would have found her.” What impresses me most in this sad story is that almost all commenters support the daughter and say the mother should be more understanding to the young woman's hostility. Some even say that the mother should have demanded leniency for the kidnapper, "the only mother the girl knew". (Williams was sentenced to 18 years, Mobley wanted a death sentence. The daughter regularly calls her imprisoned fake "mother".)

There is almost a consensus that the kidnapper gave Kamiya a "loving home" and, hence, was not so bad after all. Also, the fact that Shanara was very young, single and poor at the time of birth is cited as an argument that the baby was lucky to be kidnapped. Some even hint that Gloria was a Good Samaritan motivated by an urge to save the baby from a miserable ghetto life with a deadbeat birth mom. People also blame the mother for receiving money from a settlement with the hospital and for being "vengeful" to the kidnapper. There is a universal sympathy to Kamiya and the way she feels about the two women who shaped her life.

On another page, I found information about what Gloria Williams said in court:

Williams says she was in an abusive relationship with a man, Charles Manigo... She says Manigo wanted her to have a baby, and she thought
that would help bring peace to their home, so she ultimately got
pregnant. Williams says she miscarried as a result of the stress of the
abuse... but even after she got it medically
confirmed, she didn’t tell anyone.

In July 1998, Williams says she was leaving work, when she
essentially went in to autopilot... She says she doesn’t know why she drove down I-95 from
her home in South Carolina... “It was definitely not to take a baby, that’s for sure,” she says. That blank slate continued as she walked in to the hospital...

Williams says she went and looked at the other babies and thought about the one she had lost, and then walked in to Shanara Mobley’s room, again telling the defense she wasn’t sure why.

Williams says she spent a lot of time talking with Mobley
and helping her out. She was still wearing scrubs from her job, and
while she told the prosecutor that she didn’t claim to be a nurse at the
hospital, she admitted that she knew that’s what Mobley thought. Then
the newborn, Kamiyah Mobley, was brought in to the room.

“I was thinking about, you know, maybe this baby could help
Charles, that’s what I was thinking. It was like, she [Shanara] was so
young, and she just wasn’t real sure about what she was gunna do, and
just my mindset at that time wasn’t logical, it definitely wasn’t
logical. But for what I was thinking at that time, it seemed right, it
seemed right,” Williams says.

Williams would ultimately take the baby back to her home in
South Carolina, renaming her Alexis Manigo, and telling Charles Manigo
it was his baby. She says the baby did not bring peace to their home
after all, though, and when she ultimately had a custody agreement with
her two sons from a prior marriage changed because of the abuse, she
decided to leave with Kamiyah as well...

The defense walked Williams through a series of photos
showing awards, celebrations and gatherings featuring Kamiyah while she
was growing up. Williams further said Kamiyah was always cared for and
provided for.

“I said, ‘you’re not my daughter’. I said, ‘I took you a long time ago’,” Williams says she told Kamiyah at that time.

Williams says she offered to turn herself in at that time, but Kamiyah told her not to. They went on another year and a half or so before the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office ultimately learned about Kamiyah and reached out...

Williams
agreed that how this went is the “worst” possible outcome for Kamiyah... Upon questioning from the prosecution,
Williams said her motivation for taking the baby was not out of concern
for how Mobley would raise her, but for selfish reasons..."

So you see that by Williams' own admission, her kidnapping was not motivated by a wish to protect the baby from a hard life. It was motivated by an obsession to maintain a relationship with an abusive boyfriend. Being obsessed about sex doesn't exactly make one a good parent. Williams may have been financially better off than Mobley, but I don't think she gave Kamiya a "loving home". You also see from this short text that Williams is a master manipulator. One cannot help pitying young Kamiya. As a minority of commenters remarked, she was brainwashed and is now suffering of Stockholm syndrome.

But Kamiya is no longer a child. She is a 20-yr-old young adult who knows her situation and makes her choices. And she behaves like a worthy quasi-child of her kidnapper, unable and unwilling to tell right from wrong and lies from truth. In her immense selfishness, she uses her feelings as a substitute for the moral compass she lacks, sides with her evil impostor "mother" and victimizes her true mother for a second time. What if "the only mother she knew" had killed her actual mother? There is a tiny chance that Kamiya could reform as she matures, but my observation is that at 20, the core of personality has already hardened.

The mother says: "I shouldn't have to compete with a kidnapper... I didn’t know this kidnapper had such a hold on her. I can see that it’s
my child, but I can also see traits from the kidnapper in her. She would defend the kidnapper to me. She blames me for
everything. I think she blames me that this woman is sitting in jail.
She’s blocked now because I don’t want to argue with her. I’m tired of
being hurt."

Nevertheless, the majority of people think that the mother should shut up and put up with the fact that the piece of shit who kidnapped her daughter 20 years ago conferred her personality to the girl, making Kamiya a similar piece of shit. People think that Shanara should be all sympathy and understanding. Modern Western society loves to put unrealistic demands to parents, especially mothers, and to smear them for nothing. Maybe this is one of the reasons why mothers are increasingly in short supply.

I also think the psycho kidnapper should not be allowed any contact with her victim.

About Me

My name is Maya Markova. This blog is my little corner where I write about things that interest me, in as politically incorrect style as I like. I do not claim to be clever, good, free of prejudice and bigotry, broad-minded, enlightened, polite, attractive or superior in any other way. This is not a science blog and I write here what I like, not what people think a "scientist" should write. I try not to bore my readers but of course I cannot guarantee that what I am writing will be interesting for you.